Medicine: Not Kala-azar

George Mosher, 14, "kala-azar victim"
(TIME, July 1), died last week. Ten blood transfusions, the interest of
the Rockefeller Institute and the New York Health Department, the hard
work of his hospital doctors, all were useless. Autopsists sought for
the rare Asian microbe of kala-azar (tropical black fever) supposed
to have killed him. But no organism was found. The verdict: he died of
an unusual anemia, called idiopathic aplastic (self-forming,
non-tissue-building).